


re-enacting the utterances

by orsumfenix



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Demons, F/M, Gen, Sibling Bonding, Weddings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2020-10-17 06:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20616236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orsumfenix/pseuds/orsumfenix
Summary: Allison doesn't hunt the supernatural anymore. She's getting married to a nice, normal man so she can have a nice, normal life. Then her Dad dies and her missing brother shows up and being normal isn't an option anymore.





	1. The Wedding

**Author's Note:**

> this started as me wanting to write legit just. one scene. and now it's this.

"We can cancel the wedding," Patrick says. Allison shakes her head.

"No." It wasn't supposed to come out that sharp. Patrick looks at her sadly.

"We can postpone it," he says. "It's fine, Allison, it can wait. This is more important -" 

"It's not," she cuts in. "I know it sounds like I'm bullshitting, but really. It's okay. I didn't even like my dad." 

Someone knocks on the door. Patrick sighs.

"It's not about whether you liked him or not. It's about him dying the day before your wedding." 

"Patrick," Allison says as gently as she can without screaming. "I really don't care." 

She actually doesn’t. She hasn't spoken to her dad in years, and hasn't been working with him for even longer. When an interview about her wedding suddenly turned into an interview about her dad that died literally two minutes ago, Allison was mostly just annoyed that he couldn't die when she wasn't being broadcast on national TV.

The others might care, though. Fuck knows if they'll turn up to the wedding now.

The person at the door is still knocking. 

"Maybe the fact that you don't care is why we should postpone. I don't think not caring is a very normal reaction to this, and I just – I don't want you to be upset later, that's all." His eyes are downcast. He cares about her so much. It's overwhelming.

She should cancel the wedding. Everyone would understand. Expect it, even. The press will have a field day if she keeps it on.

The knocking's still going.

The paparazzi are very persistent today. Allison grabs a bottle of water while Patrick goes to answer, holding it without taking a single sip. How did they even get past security? She's hired some very expensive bodyguards to stop exactly this happening.

Whoever it is, Patrick seems to be arguing with them. Allison leans against the kitchen wall, glad she's too far away to hear what's being said. Probably stuff about Dad, questions about how she feels and what she'll do, things that are all _nobody's fucking business_.

The door slams.

"Who was it?" she asks Patrick when he wanders back in, looking kind of scared. "World at One?" 

"Just some kid. Think he wanted an autograph or something." His face doesn't look like it was just some kid. "No idea how he got past the bodyguards, but they should come and remove him soon." 

This time when the door goes, it pounds. Allison frowns.

"Is that security?" 

"Not this fast. Kid must just be a big fan. Doesn't exactly excuse showing up on someone's door like this." Patrick wordlessly accepts the water Allison offers. "I swear to god, fans these days just get bolder and bolder -" As he talks the knocking gets so loud it’s almost unbearable, making both of them wince. Jesus Christ, can it really be worth the hearing damage?

“Whatever, I’ll just give him one.” Allison goes for the door and tries to ignore how guilty it makes her feel when Patrick moves to reassure her that she doesn’t have to. “It’s fine, fans have been crazier, they get these parasocial relationship things -”

She swings open the door and freezes. Number Five stares at her from where his hand is hovering, ready to keep knocking the house down.

“Tell your fiancé I don’t care about an autograph,” Five says. Allison chokes.

“What the – Five, you – you look – _how _are you – where-”

Five ignores her inability to spit a simple question out and raises an eyebrow.

“Can I come in? I need a drink. An alcoholic one. I’d rather have wine but honestly anything strong will do.” He pushes past without much resistance, striding into the hallway and frowning when Allison gapes like a fish instead of doing Literally Anything Else. She hasn’t even shut the door. “What’s wrong with you?”

Patrick chooses that moment to walk in from the kitchen, face spasming when he sees Five inside. Five is the kid he was talking about. What the fuck. “Oh, now this is getting ridiculous -”

“Save it,” Five snaps, holding up a hand. Allison can’t seem to move. Is she in shock right now? No. She’s fine. She’s always fine.

Allison takes a deep breath and finally manages to talk. “What the actual hell, Five?”

“Not Hell, but close,” Five says, smirking, and fuck him.

“What the – don’t get all enigmatic, you little shit, you disappear for all these years then show right up looking the same and acting as if nothing happened? What the _hell_ is going on? And don’t lie to me, because I _will _know and I _won’t_ be happy.” Patrick’s mouth drops open. Five stares.

“You know this kid?” Patrick asks, looking very worried. At the same time Five says: “I’m not trying to act like nothing happened,” solving exactly nothing.

Okay. Deep breaths. Calm down. It’s not good to start yelling at your brother when he shows up after almost ten years.

“I’m not saying I’m not glad to see you,” Allison forces out, trying for a smile that probably looks a bit manic. She shuts the door. It better look calm. “I’m just – I’m confused.”

“Me too,” Patrick says. He must be even more confused than her. He never even knew Five existed.

Five sizes her up for several long moments before relenting.

“Okay,” he says, nodding. “But I need a drink. Like I said, I prefer wine.”

He is very clearly still thirteen, even if Allison doesn’t understand how. He will not be having wine.

\--

Five has wine.

Allison has wine, too, because trying to stop him proved impossible and this whole thing still hasn’t sunk in. She asked Patrick if he could give them privacy with some half-assed explanation of Five being her brother that she hasn’t seen for ages. It’s not technically a lie, she’s careful not to directly lie, because all she used to do was lie to him.

She’s barely taken a sip of wine before realising. “Oh my god, I need to call the others.”

Five doesn’t sip his wine. Five necks it.

“They can wait until tomorrow,” he says when he’s about a third of the way through. Allison watches with a kind of detached horror. Why is she letting this happen, again? Oh, right. Because she has issues and she’s scared if she pushes him too hard he’ll disappear again and never come back. “Unless it turns out you didn’t actually invite them to the wedding, which would be a dick move but understandable.”

“How do you know about that?”

Five looks at her like she’s stupid. Condescending little bastard. “You’re famous. It’s in all the newspapers. How did you think I got your address?”

Her address shouldn’t be common knowledge, but it’s unsurprising. What’s more surprising is Five finishing his glass in record time and calmly pouring himself another.

This whole thing is so surreal. It’s almost too much to handle.

Allison stares at the table.

“I hope they’ll still come,” she admits softly, half wondering why they’re talking about this instead wherever Five’s been and half relieved to get it off her chest. “I almost didn’t invite them, but it’d seem so awful not to and when only Vanya and Luther replied I figured it’d probably be a no-show, but I’ve booked them a table.” On instinct she downs the rest of her glass. She really doesn’t like the taste. She only bought it because it was expensive. “Not Dad, though,” she adds belatedly. Wipes her mouth. “He can fuck off.”

He _has _fucked off. Oh, Christ, does Five know? Allison opens his mouth to tell him but –

“I can’t believe the old man’s finally kicked the bucket,” Five mutters. Of course. He’s read the newspapers. “Not sorry, but still. Figured he’d last longer than that.”

“Yeah,” Allison breathes, mindlessly pouring herself another glass. She should stop before she ends up drunk the night before her wedding. She doesn’t stop. “Me too. I don't know, it’s weird.”

Five, little thirteen-year-old Five who can’t be here, surely, he’s just some kind of stress hallucination, narrows his eyes at her and asks the question she’s been dreading to hear.

“Are you still a hunter?”

Allison takes a deep breath.

“No. No, I’m not.”

Five hums. “I thought so. The others?”

“Diego hunts on his own. Luther hunts, well, _hunted _with Dad. I don’t know about Klaus.” Allison is so used to lying to people that even the truth feels sticky and wrong. She feels like she’s hiding something from Five, but. She’s not.

That’s what living with someone you always lie to does. You can’t find the truth anymore.

Allison clears her throat. It burns a little, and her head is starting to feel lighter. She really should stop drinking. “What about you, Five? What is going on with you? Where have you been, why do you look thirteen, and why are you here now?”

“It’s a really long story.”

“I’ve got time.”

Five looks her up and down for a few long seconds. Why is he suddenly scary. What is this.

“It can wait until after your wedding,” he says at length. His voice is obviously supposed to be calm, but the strong white of his fingers where they grip his glass says he’s not. “I think now you should go to bed. Big day tomorrow.”

“Right.” She’s aching to know now where he’s been, but in all honesty he doesn’t look very well and if she pushes him he could leave and this is all so overwhelming, first Dad and now this and then the wedding and she can handle it, it’s just. It’s a lot. “You can stay in one of the guest rooms tonight. Nothing I can do about the wedding, though. You’re not on the list and it’s too late to add you now.”

Five waves a hand with a bit too much force. That wine must’ve gone straight to his head. Allison carefully moves the bottle away from his reach.

“Can’t say I care all that much. If the others show up, bring them here after. If not, bring them here anyway. We all need to talk.”

“Yeah, we do. Especially you. You have a lot of explaining to do. And I’m putting the wine away, you’ve had enough for now. You shouldn’t be drinking it anyway.”

“For your information, I’m well above the legal drinking age.”

Allison stares at his very-much-thirteen-year-old-face. “Sure.”

“It’s true.”

“I’m not saying it’s not. Like I said, you can explain later.”

“Yeah,” Five says, voice suddenly very small. “Later.”

She isn’t sure she wants to know where he’s been. She’s absolutely sure that he doesn’t want to tell her.

\--

Patrick offers to cancel the wedding again in the morning. He looks so relieved when she shakes her head.

“It’s fine,” she says for the thousandth time. “It’s fine.”

When she checks the guest room Five is asleep. There’s a half-empty vodka bottle on the table next to him. Allison takes it quietly and hides it in her room.

Patrick wasn’t actually supposed to be here today – bad luck to see the bride before the wedding, after all – but when he heard about Dad he came rushing over. Now he leaves to get ready with his friends while Allison’s stylists swarm into the house.

“Just a warning,” she says when they start in on her makeup. “My weird little brother is in the guest room, so if you see a thirteen-year-old wandering around it’s fine.”

“Didn’t know you had a weird little brother.” Andrea, her main makeup artist and one of her best friends, raises her brow. “Colour me curious.”

“He’s an asshole.”

“Noted.”

They go with light makeup in the end, with her hair braided and twisted up into a coronet-like shape. Conversation focuses completely around the wedding and the following reception, either because everyone’s so excited or they’re all dancing around the fact that Allison’s father died yesterday.

Five wanders in after a little over an hour, looking downright awful. He’s totally hungover, isn’t he? Where did he even get that vodka?

“I can’t find the marshmallows,” he announces, glaring at Allison like that’s somehow her fault. “Or the coffee.”

Andrea chokes on nothing. Everyone else just looks confused.

“We don’t have any marshmallows that I know of,” Allison tells him, with a warning look to be nice. As if he was missing yesterday morning and this morning he’s already doing her head in. “The coffee might be out somewhere, there’s a lot of people here.”

“Yeah, I’m not blind.”

Allison honestly can’t remember if Five was always this rude. He was definitely a know-it-all, forever showing off that he knew more types of creature than them and the exact best way to kill them all, and it was always hilarious if he turned out to be wrong.

He used to be nice to Vanya, though. Nicer than Allison was, in that he actually tried to include her.

“You looking forward to the wedding, kid?” Favour, hairstylist and another of Allison’s friends, asks Five. She looks like she’s trying very hard not to laugh. “Should be good.”

“I’d rather be decapitated,” Five bites out. Jeez, he must be hungover. “I’m going out, I need your car.”

“Um,” says Allison, “no.”

“I can drive, if that’s the problem.”

“Where are you even going?”

“To get a decent cup of coffee. And some marshmallows.”

“I really don’t think it’s a good idea for you to leave the house.” This must seem so weird to her friends. Allison plasters on a fake smile. “Tell you what, I’ll leave you some money and you can order yourself a takeaway or something, alright?”

Five eyes the others before squinting and walking away. Which is. Slightly worrying, and not an answer.

“Your brother is, uh, something,” Favour says. Allison shuts her eyes.

“You can say weird.”

“Your brother is weird,” Andrea says. “_Is _he coming to the wedding? Because I feel like that’d be really funny.”

“He’s not coming, thank god.”

Favour pulls away from Allison’s hair after having been at it awhile. “There. I’ll just spray it and we’ll be done. Then it’s dress time!”

The dress is lovely. It’s glamourous, long and stereotypical. Allison runs her hand down it once it’s on, taking in the soft fabric and slight ruffles. She feels like a princess. This is the best day of her life.

Well, the second best day. The best day was getting away from Dad.

“Oh, Ally,” Zainab says. Before she was last-minute going over seating arrangements, but now she devotes her whole attention to Allison. “You look beautiful.”

\--

Getting married is everything she hoped it would be.

Allison walks down the aisle and it’s all eyes on her. Everyone’s smiling. Everyone’s happy.

Her eyes catch Vanya in the crowd. She looks the same as when Allison saw her last – small, anxious and tired. But she’s smiling, too. It’s infectious.

Patrick says his vows and finally, _finally_, Allison forgets about Dad, forgets about Five and hunting and whether any of the others have shown up. All she thinks of is how much she loves this wedding, and how much Patrick loves her, and how everything is going to be okay.

\--

Moving to the reception hall teaches her that Vanya isn’t the only one to show up, after all. There’s Luther, big and hulking and looking very awkward standing next to Klaus, who’s practically whooping. And is that – is that _Diego _lurking at the back?

Seeing them all stirs something warm inside Allison’s heart. They came. Dad died yesterday and they probably all think she’s crazy getting married today and half of them hate each other, but they came.

“It’s so good to see you,” she tells Klaus and Luther sincerely as they wander over. Luther looks like he had a rough night. Klaus does not. It’s a weird role reversal and probably the result of how they both felt about Dad. They probably need to talk about that later. Just. Not now. “I was worried you wouldn’t come.”

“I found the reply I thought I’d sent in a sock the other day,” Klaus announces. Some things never change. “But hey, big party, free wine, rich people? I am _here_.”

“We’re here to support Allison,” Luther says, probably not meaning to sound so self-righteous. “I ran into Klaus on the way here. You look – um, you look nice.”

“Thank you.” Allison’s hand moves down her dress again. She’s so happy they’re here. “I don’t want to ruin the mood, but I think it’s worth acknowledging how weird this is. Dad died yesterday and here I am…”

“Oh, fuck him,” Klaus says. Luther startles. “Bet he kicked it on purpose to ruin this for you. Stick it to him!”

“Klaus -” Luther hisses, quickly interrupted by Diego fucking _appearing _by his shoulder and saying: “Honestly I wasn’t going to come until I heard you were still having this thing out of spite so I made my way here.”

Allison shoots him an unimpressed look. “It wasn’t out of spite, Diego.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.”

In the mingling crowd Vanya is looking very small and very left-out. Allison waves her over, a pang of guilt hitting when Vanya seems surprised she noticed. She’ll have to fix that. Fix them.

“Hi,” Vanya greets nervously when she reaches them. Diego glares.

“What is she doing here?” he bites out. “She doesn’t belong here, not after what she did.”

“I’ll invite whoever I want to my own wedding,” Allison retorts. She will realise later that this was the wrong thing to say. She should’ve argued that Vanya does belong here, that she belongs with them and always has. “Hi, Vanya. You look nice.”

“Not as nice as you,” Vanya says, and Allison’s heart breaks just a little.

She takes a deep breath. “We need to talk. All of us. There’s something really important I have to tell you. Or show you, really.”

“Is it about Dad?” Luther asks, and she’s not sure how to say _no, it’s our brother who went missing ten years ago and has coincidentally re-shown up looking the exact same age the same day Dad died which, now that I’m thinking about it, is very suspicious_.

In the end she goes with: “Sort of,” which’ll just have to do.

They seem content with that, like they were expecting to have a family talk about it sooner or later. They seem less happy about the seating arrangements.

“We’re all sat together?” Diego repeats dumbly while Klaus cracks up. “Isn’t that a terrible idea?”

It probably is. Allison briefly considered sitting them all at separate tables to quell the, uh, _dysfunction_, but had quickly realised that having them spread out would just spread it even more. Better to contain it. Better for no one to realise how fucked up they all are. She can keep her life that way.

“Try not to blow up the venue,” she says. “You’re on Table 10.”

The tables are set for six people each, so by unhappy coincidence the table she’s put her siblings at will have two empty chairs. The significance wasn’t lost on her, but sitting two random people on there among the crazy that is her siblings seemed like an awful idea.

She’ll swing by at some point and fill an empty seat. Might make it less weird.

It’s a relief to sit by Patrick on the opposite side of the room, surrounded by Zainab, Favour, Andrea and a couple of Patrick’s friends. His parents are sat just a table over with a lot of his family, something that, other than her siblings, Allison doesn’t have. This room is filled with friends and colleagues.

The food is good. The mingling is great. Everyone’s so happy to be here.

She keeps an eye on Table 10. The only one who tries to talk to anyone is Klaus, who’s steadily going through cocktails. The others just look awkward. Luther looks like he might fall apart at any second. He probably shouldn’t have come. He always admired Dad so much.

Patrick kisses her after the best man’s speech. His mother pulls her aside to tell her how grateful she is. Her first employer shakes her hand and says he’s proud of how far she’s come.

It’s all fine until Five walks in.

By the time Allison notices it’s too late to get him out without the others seeing. She’s halfway through a cocktail sausage at the snack bar and almost chokes when she looks over to see Five casually walking up to Table 10 and plonking himself down in one of the empty seats.

Luther spits out his drink. Vanya drops her fork.

It’s kind of awkward to rush across a large wedding reception in a wedding dress while trying to make it seem like everything’s fine. Hopefully the wide smiles and dozens of apologies she gives out do the trick.

Allison reaches the table just in time to hear Diego saying “- actual, literal, _fuck_ -” as Five smirks and sips the cocktail he just stole from Klaus.

“Are you a ghost?” Klaus asks dimly, gently chop-sueying Five and gaping when his hand doesn’t go through. “Are you a corporeal ghost?”

“Could a ghost do this?” Five poses, then downs the entire cocktail. Either he’s not actually as hungover as this morning, or he’s a great actor. He certainly looks significantly better than before, in that his hair is combed and the bags under his eyes are gone. Probably found that coffee he was wanting.

“The _hell?_” Diego seethes as Luther says, “Five, Five, you’re -” and Vanya joins in, breathing, “Oh my god,” and everyone’s talking over each other asking what on earth is going on, which Allison wants to know too but they’re getting _really _loud -

“Will you all just be quiet, please?” She’s not even yelling, but apparently being the bride can get anyone to listen to you. Huh. She should get married more often. “Can we take this outside? This isn’t really something we should talk about in here.”

Five narrows his eyes. “Because of the all people or because Diego looks about one second from trying to stab me with a knife? Not that he could manage to, but the publicity would be bad.”

The publicity of her tiny brother saying things like that would be bad.

They go outside.

The cold air’s only just slapped her in the face before Luther is turning on Five. “It’s been ten years, where did you go?”

“Actually it’s been nine years, eleven months, three weeks and six days,” Five rattles off. “Also longer than that. A _lot _longer than that.”

“Is that supposed to make no sense?” Diego demands. For once Allison’s glad to have such a bitter brother to express the things she’s not really supposed to. “Because that makes no sense.”

“Well, it would if you were smarter.”

“Or if you felt like making sense!” Klaus chirps. He’s either drunk, high, excited at seeing Five again, or all three. “Where _have _you been?”

Five opens his mouth and it seems like Allison might finally get the explanation she’s been waiting on since yesterday – no, since almost ten years ago – but then he firmly shuts it and scowls.

“It doesn’t matter. That’s not what I came here to tell you.”

“It matters,” Vanya says. She’s been so quiet Allison almost forget she was there, and the slight startle at her voice brings a wave of guilt she has a feeling she’s going to get used to.

Five shakes his head.

“There are more important things going on. We should wait until after the reception so I can explain it properly.”

Allison frowns. “If you’re not going to explain until after, why did you show up? You said you didn’t want to come.”

“I got bored.”

“You said you’d rather be decapitated.”

Five bares his teeth. “I couldn’t find a strong enough chainsaw.”

“Wait a minute,” Luther interrupts, raising his hand. “Allison, you knew Five was back?”

And just like that everyone’s staring at her instead of Five. It’s intense when a lot of people are looking at you to judge instead of admire. She thought she was used to it by now from countless interviews and catwalks, but her family can still override everything she thought she’d built up.

“He showed up at my house yesterday,” she admits. “I was going to tell you after the reception.”

“And you didn’t think we might want to know sooner?” Diego snaps. “What, the thought didn’t cross your mind?”

Allison glares.

“I don’t know, Diego, did you forget the part where _our Dad died_ and maybe this on top of that might be a bit too hard to handle?”

“Oh, bullshit, you just wanted to make sure today kept being all about you!”

That throws her for a loop. God, what if he’s right? What if she just wanted her wedding to be about her and that’s why she didn’t tell them about Five first, just deluding herself into thinking she’s trying to protect them and let them take it slower than she got to and really she just wanted her moment in the spotlight -?

“I told her to wait,” Five says. Allison’s brain grinds to a halt. “I was going to wait at her house, but I got bored. You know she barely keeps any alcohol, right?”

“You shouldn’t be drinking, you’re thirteen.” Klaus doesn’t sound like he even believes himself. “Also, why are you thirteen? I feel like you’d only be thirteen if you were actually a ghost.”

“I’m not a ghost, Klaus. There’s a reason I look like this.”

“I would love to hear it,” Luther puts in. A breeze of wind makes Allison shiver. She feels awful for being annoyed at this, at how it’s ruining what was a lovely wedding. It shouldn’t be her main priority.

How did Five even get in? This is the house all over again. She has security, for god’s sake.

The door opens. Patrick steps out, worried and wonderful and _normal_.

“I don’t want to interrupt, just making sure everything’s okay.”

It’s not. It’s really not.

Allison pastes on her best smiles and says, “Everything’s fine.”

\--

Five goes back to the reception as soon as he can, somehow managing to dodge everyone’s questions about where he’s been. Patrick frowns when he sees him, but doesn’t ask any questions. He’s really too good for Allison.

There’s nothing to do but head inside. There’s cake and dancing and truly awful karaoke.

Allison dances with Patrick to a romantic slow song that she honestly couldn’t name. She rests her head on his shoulder. He strokes her hair with his hand.

She breathes in. He’s wearing his favourite aftershave.

Tilting her head reveals Five and Vanya talking by the snack bar. Is he telling her where he’s been? It wouldn’t be a surprise. He always liked her best.

Well. Her and Ben.

Allison has been resolutely Not Thinking about Ben all day. Five showing back up has made it glaringly obvious how much the holes in their family still hurt. If Ben were still alive, he would’ve RSVP’d. If Ben were alive he’d be here.

She buries her head deeper into Patrick’s shoulders and wills away the tears in her eyes. She will not cry of anything but happiness. Not on her wedding day.

This whole day is so bittersweet. It’s weird and awkward and lovely.

“I can’t wait to spend tonight with you,” Patrick says into her hair. Allison smiles.

“Me neither.”

After dancing for hours she sits down. These heels are murder on her feet, she should’ve brought flats to change into. Patrick’s caught up in a conversation with – Jesus Christ, Klaus. That must be interesting.

Somehow Allison can’t bring herself to interrupt. She runs her hand over a napkin at the table, posh with gold edges. The snack bar’s almost completely out of food. Five hasn’t left Vanya’s side all evening. Diego looks like he’s trying to chat up Andrea and failing. Luther is –

Luther is pulling a chair out next to her.

“Hey,” he greets nervously.

“Hi.”

“This is all a bit crazy, right?”

“Right.”

Luther looks out at everyone. He looks sad, like he doesn’t think there’ll ever be a party like this for him.

“I’m glad you didn’t cancel the wedding,” he says. “Even though I thought you would.”

Allison picks up her wineglass, swirling the contents. She can already see where this conversation is going. Luther’s always had a devotion to Dad and hunting that borders on inhuman.

“Because of Dad?”

“He died yesterday, Allison.” Luther’s brow furrows. “It’s like none of you even care.”

_I don’t._

“Well, he wasn’t exactly the nicest parent.”

“He just wanted us to be the best hunters that we could.”

“And look where it got him.” She sips her glass, shrugging as casually as she can manage. “He’s dead, Luther. And he wasn’t our real dad anyway. We can be whatever we want.”

Luther thinks that they all should be hunters. Well, all but Vanya. She can see it in every inch of his posture, the tense shoulders and unhappy face.

“Why did you leave?” he asks. “Was it so you could get married?”

“It was because I wanted to. I’m living for me. And Patrick now.”

Luther stares more at the room.

“I’m glad you’re happy,” he says eventually. Allison finishes her glass with a smile.

“Thank you.”

Across the room Five wanders away from Vanya, who’s talking to a guy Allison assumes is one of Patrick’s friends. They’re smiling at each other. Good. Vanya could use someone nice in her life.

Allison’s going to have to try harder with Vanya. It’s about time they got close.

“I think we should all meet up tomorrow,” she suggests, tearing her eyes away from Vanya to see Luther drinking – water? When there’s free wine on the table? Classic Luther. “We have a lot to talk about. And it’s my honeymoon in two days, so.”

‘A lot to talk about’ means Five and maybe starting to repair their family, but Luther is very serious as he nods.

“Right. There are things about Dad’s death that need to be cleared up.”

A sense of unease makes its way down Allison’s spine.

“What kind of things? He died of heart failure.”

“That’s what the press think. I had to use his contacts to have them release that so I could investigate privately.” He looks around to make sure no one’s listening before he leans in. “Dad was stabbed. He was murdered, and I think a demon did it.”


	2. Reunited

Luther is the first to leave. He’s booked a hotel nearby, but before he goes he suggests they all meet up for lunch tomorrow to talk about their Dad.

Allison is well aware that Luther is the only one who cares about that. The others are all just gonna want to talk about Five and where he’s been for ten years and why he looks the same, questions that Allison’s dying to know the answer to herself.

Apparently neither Diego nor Klaus bothered booking anywhere to stay at all, so they leave to check into a motel soon after Luther. Allison stamps down the sticky feeling that sits in her chest as she watches them go. It’s fine. She’ll see them tomorrow.

Vanya is next. She’s got a room in a hotel across town, but one of Patrick’s friends has offered to give her a lift.

“Thank you for the invite,” she says, still sounding disbelieved that she even got one. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, Vanya. Thanks for coming.” Vanya smiles before she walks away. Allison’s counting that one as a win.

It’s only when Five approaches that she realises he’s probably supposed to be staying at her house again.

“Tonight is your wedding night,” he says, like Allison doesn’t know that already. “It’d be weird for you and your husband if I was there while you…_y’know_.” Allison stares. He shifts. “Vanya’s got a hotel room she said I can crash in.”

Sure enough, Vanya is waiting for him by the exit.

“Okay.” Allison hopes the relief on her face isn’t too obvious. “I can wire her some money, she can upgrade to a twin room.”

Five shakes his head stubbornly. He’s wearing a suit that actually fits him, which is remarkable given how small he is. Where did he even get that?

“No need. Doubt there’ll be anyone on the desk this late, anyway. I’ll sleep on the floor.” His face does a thing, and if Allison’s memory serves her right then he’s very uncomfortable. Huh. “I should probably warn you about something.”

“What kind of something?”

“It’s about demons.” He doesn’t even _attempt _to keep his voice down. It’s lucky no one’s standing close enough to hear. “I think they’ve found a way to hide their true forms from us." 

The world goes silent around them. Allison stares at him for several long moments. She’s not used to being at a loss for words.

“Five,” she says. “Where were you?”

“I’m going now.” Oh, he’s a little shit. If he doesn’t explain everything tomorrow, she swears to god – “Enjoy your night.”

\--

Allison does enjoy her night. She puts everything out of her head when she’s with Patrick – demons, Five, her dead father. It’s just the two of them, and he’s nice and normal and safe.

If Patrick knew who Allison really was, he never would’ve married her.

The thought is uncomfortable, but it sits there in her head and takes up a lot of room. Patrick doesn't know about the supernatural world and how Allison was raised by her dad to fight it. He doesn't know that Reginald Hargreeves, renowned in the hunting world, acquired seven children from foster homes and orphanages across the world with the belief that they could see the true forms of demons, and the only one he was wrong about was Vanya. 

Allison and her siblings were good hunters because they knew when they were looking at a demon and when they were looking at a person. Even in her life now, her gift helps to reduce the paranoia. Vampires and werewolves are fair game, but a demon? She can't be tricked by a demon.

Except now. Except Five is saying that - 

"Allison?" Patrick asks in the morning, holding out the landline he just answered. "Phone for you." 

"Hey," Vanya's voice greets when Allison takes the phone. "Sorry if I'm interrupting anything." 

Allison twirls the wire around her finger. "I gave you my number so you could call." 

”Right. Sorry. I just figured I should tell you first because you're the one he went to first." 

Uh oh. That doesn't sound good. A feeling of dread rises in Allison's chest. 

"What's going on?" 

"Five stayed in my hotel room last night, but when I woke up this morning he was gone." 

Allison holds her breath and counts to ten. For god's sake, Five.

"Did he say where?" 

"No. I've searched the hotel and I've looked in all these diners nearby, but I can't find him." 

"Do you think it's - the same reason as before? Is he gone for another ten years?" 

"I think he just ran away," Vanya confesses. "We had a talk last night, and I - I wouldn't say it went well." 

Allison frowns. "What kind of talk?" 

"He said where he'd been all this time." Vanya sounds incredibly embarrassed. "Or at least where he thinks he's been. But Allison, it's so unbelievable -" 

"Where?" Allison interrupts, immediately mentally kicking herself. She's supposed to be trying to be a better sister than this. 

"I'm not sure I should tell you. I think Five was just confused." 

"Okay." Allison's desperate to know, _screaming _for it, but. She shouldn't push. She should handle this like an adult. "Well, we're all still meeting for dinner as far as I know, so we can talk about it then." 

"I'm still on for it. I'll keep looking until then. I got in contact with Patrick's friend, the one who gave me a lift? He said he'd help me look."

Hmm. Interesting.

Allison can't help smiling as she says, "Okay, Vanya. I'll see you later." 

She spends the morning packing. Tomorrow her and Patrick are going to Athens for a week, followed by Barcelona for six days. Their honeymoon. The one Patrick offered to cancel last night and the one Allison said no to cancelling. 

She refuses to let Reginald ruin even this from beyond the grave. 

Opening her sock draw, she pauses. There it is, wedged in the corner. Vanya's book. The one that the publisher's thought was fiction. The one that accuses them all of leaving her out because she couldn't see demons, even though sometimes Allison would've given anything not to. 

The cover is worn from how many times Allison has held it and stared, but the pages themselves are crisp. She only read it once. The chapter about Ben made her cry. 

Allison thumbs through those pages now, pausing over a chapter simply entitled **FIVE. **She could do with re-reading this one. See if there's any clues about where he went then and where he's gone now. 

When Patrick calls for her a few rooms over Allison starts guiltily. She knows, of course, that she's got nothing to be ashamed of. It's a book written by her sister. It's normal to have, even if its contents aren't the fiction they're presented as. 

She puts the book in her suitcase and hides it under a dress. 

\--

Everyone but Diego and Five are already at the diner when she arrives. God knows if either of them are even going to show up, so they all order their food without bothering to wait. Part of her is flattered that the others will order now when they didn't order before her. They see her as reliable. They knew she was going to show up. 

"Me and Diego saw a demon on the way over!" Klaus announces cheerfully when asked. "So he went to deal with it." 

Luther starts. "Alone?" 

Klaus shrugs. 

"Why did you let him?" Luther demands. "We could help, we -"

"He's been hunting alone for years," Klaus dismisses. "And I was hungry." Allison interprets that as 'I wanted to get drugs', judging by his eyes and how fast he's talking. Jesus. 

"If he's not here in the next half hour, we'll go and look for him," Allison says, and Vanya nods. 

Diego can handle himself. If he couldn't he'd have been dead a long time ago. 

Luther still doesn't look happy, shifting. Vanya leans forward. 

"Maybe it's related to Five," she suggests, somewhat half-heartedly. "If there's a demon nearby right as he's gone missing, maybe he went to fight it, too." 

"Or maybe it stole him away like when we were kids," Klaus says, and Vanya's lips purse. 

“That's not funny." 

"No? I think it's hilarious."

"Five wasn't stolen," Luther asserts. "He ran away. The fact that he's back now is proof of that." 

Luther was always pretty certain that Five ran away. He used to call it 'shirking his responsibilities'. Vanya used to insist that he must've somehow gotten lost and couldn't find his way back, like how cats do sometimes. As a kid Allison had snapped back that Five wasn't a cat, he was an incredibly clever boy, and he'd be perfectly capable of getting back whenever he wanted, so either he abandoned them or he was dead. 

She hadn't seen Vanya all evening. Allison's said a lot of things she regrets, but that's probably up there with the worst ones.

Part of Allison knew Five was dead from the first night he never came home, and she was never proven wrong until two days ago. 

She quirks her brow at Luther. "If Five just ran away, why isn't he the same age as the rest of us?" 

"Maybe," Klaus says with half a bagel stuffed in his mouth, "he's just really small." 

Allison snorts. Klaus' eyes crinkle. 

Then Luther goes and asks the question they've all been wondering. 

"Do you think Five coming back has anything to do with Dad?" 

The table goes silent. Allison looks uneasily at the table. 

"Of course not," Vanya says after a few moments, but even she doesn't sound certain. "Why would it?" 

"I don't know," Luther confesses. "But you have to admit, the timing is suspicious. Dad dies and the next day Five shows up? He's had ten years to show up. Why now?" 

"Why now what?" says a voice behind Allison. Oh shit.

It's Five, frowning at them all with a Starbucks in his hand. The cup actually has **5 **scrawled across it, which must’ve been an awkward conversation Allison wishes she’d seen.

"What are you all talking about?" Five asks. Allison's not even halfway through thinking up a decent lie before Klaus says, "Luther thinks you murdered Dad." 

“Oh.”

Luther flushes. “That’s not what I’m saying,” he insists, even though it is. “I just don’t think Dad’s death was as natural as it looked, and you turning up now is -”

“Suspicious,” Five interrupts, frowning. “I understand what you’re saying, but you’re an idiot if you think I had anything to do with it.”

Luther doesn’t look convinced. Klaus is staring at Five like he’s the saviour of mankind. Vanya’s staring at the Starbucks cup.

“Five says he didn’t do it,” Vanya says, startling everyone. “So he didn’t do it. Case closed.”

“It’s not that simple -” Luther starts, but Allison cuts in.

“It is that simple. Five, you’ve always been many things, but you’ve never been a liar.” If Five had killed Dad he’d be insufferably smug about it and parade in their faces that he was better than the old man, after all. Killing someone and lying about it…It’s just not Five’s style.

_It wasn’t Five’s style ten years ago, but what about now? _a part of her whispers. It gets ignored.

“Great,” Five says, “now that that’s settled.” He sits down next to Vanya in one of the seats they left in case he or Diego showed up, frowning at the other. “Where’s Diego?”

“He went to fight a demon,” Klaus volunteers. “Hey, does anyone wanna get drunk? Celebrate the old man finally popping his clogs? I feel like I haven’t got to have a party about it yet.”

Luther’s jaw tenses. “We need to talk about how Dad died. I told you all, it wasn’t an accident. Somebody stabbed him.”

“Cool,” Klaus says. “Was there a lot of blood?”

“If whoever hit an artery there would be,” Five volunteers. Little psycho. “Luther, did they hit an artery?”

“This isn’t a joke,” Luther says. “Our Dad is _dead_. Somebody killed him and they might be coming for us next.”

It is worrying. Everyone seems to wilt slightly at that, at knowing they themselves might not be in the clear.

Allison looks across the table at Vanya, who’s gripping the table with white fingers. Why would someone want to kill Dad? They wouldn’t. But some_thing? _It speaks for itself.

Five sips his coffee. “Allison, did you tell the others what I told you?”

“The demon thing?”

“What else would I be talking about?”

Luther looks back and forth between them. “What are you guys talking about?”

Allison sighs as Five raises a pointed eyebrow at her. “Five told me that he thinks demons have found a way to hide their true form from us. How he knows that, I don’t know, because he won’t tell us where he’s been.”

“I told Vanya.”

“Vanya isn’t everyone. We all need to know this.”

“You disappeared from my hotel room,” Vanya says, _snaps_, and whoa. That was…unexpected. Everyone stares as she takes a deep breath. “Sorry, Five. I was worried about you.”

Five nods. “I shouldn’t have left without telling you. I was at the library. I read your book.”

“Oh.” Vanya seems to shrink even at the word. “That.”

“Yeah. Thought it was pretty ballsy, all things considered. Sure that went over well.”

Klaus raises a shaky hand. “Not that this isn’t fun, but why are we talking about that fucking book when Allison just dropped the biggest bomb since Hiroshima?”

“Klaus is right,” Luther cuts in. “Amazingly. Five, where have you been? And how do you know if demons can hide their forms? How would they do that?”

Five’s looking at his coffee pretty intently.

“I know that they can,” he starts slowly, “because one hid their form from me.”

“When?” Allison asks, heart sinking because she already knows the answer.

Five smirks like he can tell what she’s thinking. “Almost ten years ago.”

It’s finally here. The explanation of where he’s been all this time, how a demon was involved and that means, surely, if they could hide ten years ago then how many has Allison failed to see, how many have they missed and how many people have been hurt because of it?

Five opens his mouth to explain further, and then Diego crashes through the window behind them.

\--

Diego, while many things, is not graceful. He picks himself off the floor of the diner, bleeding from new scratches because he’s an idiot who doesn’t seem to understand that jumping through a window will smash the glass and that glass will hit you, and stares at them.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, which is probably supposed to sound cool. Like ‘hey, just dropping in’. Except that he just broke a window in a diner and people around them are running and screaming and _Christ _he’s an asshole. “Got a bit of a situation.”

The ‘situation’ is a demon that steps in after him. It’s a weird-looking one, with a large pink head that vaguely resembles a dog, snarling. Allison fumbles for her phone and takes a picture of it. To the other diners, and to Vanya, that thing looks like a woman. But it’s not a woman.

Five curses.

“Shit, there’s two of them.”

Klaus’ head whips about. “Where?”

“Not here. There was one at the library. I barely got out.”

Luther stares. “Are you saying that this thing is after you?” Speaking of the demon, she charges at Diego, who’s not doing too shabby a job of fighting her but intervention is clearly needed. “Why?”

Five presses his lips together. “None of your business.”

“Yes, it is!” Allison points out, and oof, Diego just got punched in the face, _hard_. “Look, I’m going to go help. Stay here.”

“I’m not a kid!” Five snaps, as Luther says: “Klaus, take Vanya outside. We’ll deal with this thing. Five, what does it want?”

Diego goes flying over their heads. Allison winces as he crashes into the wall.

“Klaus, check on Diego,” Luther corrects. “Five, take Vanya outside.”

Five glares, but does as he’s told. Not that Allison lingers. She heads towards the demon, spinning towards her and snarling. Allison hasn’t done anything like this for years. It’s thrilling. It shouldn’t be thrilling. It should be scary.

Now that she’s closer, the pink fur seems to border on red, and the eyes are black holes. The demon barks in her face, breath like rotten eggs, and Allison _knows _it’s sulphur but she hates demons and she’ll make fun of them in any way she can.

The demon raises her hand and a chair goes flying towards Allison. She barely manages to duck in time, but Luther isn’t so lucky. He gets smacked and staggers, barely managing to stay upright. Huh. Looks like Dad’s training actually has paid off.

“You should get out of my way,” the demon says with a voice half woman and half snarls. “I’m only here for the kid.”

“Oh, well in that case...” Allison grunts as she lifts a chair and hurls it. The demon raises a hand and breaks it easily. Great. It’s a strong one. “Who are you, exactly?”

The demon tilts up its chin. It’s such a human action.

“Cha Cha of Hell.”

“Sounds like a dance,” says Diego, suddenly next to her. Klaus grins from beside him.

“Yeah, like a demon shuffle or something.”

“Just give me the kid,” Cha Cha says, “and I’ll leave you alone, Hargreeves. I’m not here to fight you.”

“You’re not getting him,” Luther declares, raising his fists. “You’ll have to go through us first.”

Cha Cha stares and then shrugs. “Okay.”

She leaps towards Klaus first, who yelps and scurries back. Diego and Luther rush to his aid, Luther turning to Allison as he does.

“Allison, the exorcism!”

“Right.” She takes a deep breath. Dad had her memorise so many exorcisms, some of them useless and some of them not, so she’s just going to have to circle through until she finds one that works.

The fourth one she starts has Cha Cha flinching to the side. Allison grins. A-ha.

Cha Cha’s head rears back before Allison has finished, which is why she knows to stop. Smart demons do this sometimes, leave the body of who they’re possessing before the exorcism finishes so they won’t be sent to Hell and they’re free to possess someone else.

Black smoke comes from out of her mouth and disappears out the window. Allison lets out a breath.

“Wow,” Five says, picking his way back inside. He drains the last of his coffee and dropping it on the floor. Vanya follows, staring at the diner with wide eyes. “This place is a mess.”

It is. Not as bad as it could be, but there’s a huge dent in the wall and a good few broken tables and chairs.

“I’ll call Grace,” Luther says instantly. When Dad first introduced them to Grace, he promised she could pull strings in the media and cover up anything. _Anything_, he’d repeated with dark eyes. “But we’d better get out of here.”

“What about her?” Vanya whispers, pointing. There’s a woman slumped on the floor, some poor woman that Cha Cha possessed and used and discarded. She’s unconscious, but her chest is rising and falling. Allison can see her face, now that Cha Cha is gone. “Shouldn’t we call an ambulance?”

“I can hear sirens,” Allison says, staring at the mess.

She has to cancel her honeymoon, doesn’t she?

\--

They leave through the back, because getting caught in the diner would be a very good way to get arrested.

“I can’t believe what just happened,” Luther says once they’ve stopped running, standing in an alley Diego insisted on. “If demons can hide themselves from us, why could I see that one for what it was?”

Five glares. “I never said all of them could! Obviously that one couldn’t.”

Luther glares right back. “That thing was after _you_. Why?”

“I told you, it doesn’t matter!”

“You’ve said that so much,” Klaus cuts, otherwise seeming unbothered by the day’s events. “I think it matters, bro. But hey, Diego, thought you could ‘handle it yourself’?”

Diego scowls. “I could’ve.”

“By crashing through the window?” Allison asks sceptically. Diego shifts.

“Look, the exorcisms I knew weren’t working and she was stronger than I thought she’d be.” The rest of it goes unspoken, but Diego’s always been easy to read. He knew Allison would be here, and he knew she knew more exorcisms than him. He came to the diner for her. “Sue me. What’s all this about demons hiding themselves?”

“They can do that now,” Five drones. “Where did you run into this one, exactly?”

“She was heading towards the library.”

“Oh,” Five says. “Joining her friend. Makes sense.”

“What is going on?” Vanya asks. It’s a sentiment Allison’s very quickly getting tired of having herself. “Was she after Diego or you?”

“She was after me,” Five says, like that’s something normal and not totally terrifying. “Bet she can smell my scent.” What the fuck? “Like a bloodhound. Then Diego ran into her and led her right to me, so nice job, Diego.”

Diego tenses up. “And I was supposed to know she was after you _how?_”

“Wait,” Luther interrupts, and Allison can almost guarantee this will be about Dad. “Is she the one who killed Dad?” There it is. “Is she going to come after us next?”

Five shakes his head. “It wasn’t her. Or at least, there’s a 99% chance it wasn’t her.”

“So, so whoever killed Dad, was it a demon that could hide itself?”

Five scowls. “How should I know?”

“You’re the one acting like you’ve got all the answers!”

Allison raises a hand to her head. This is so much. This is all too much.

“I need to call Patrick,” she says numbly. “I’m cancelling my honeymoon, I need to be here.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Vanya starts, but Allison shakes her head.

“Yes, I do. You guys need me. We have a lot to figure out. When are you guys heading home?”

Turns out Diego and Klaus never sorted out a way home and Vanya was planning on staying an extra day to catch an orchestra performance this evening, so Luther is the only one who has to cancel his flight back.

“Some of you can stay with me,” Allison says slowly. “It’s a big house.”

“Why not all of us?” Klaus asks, instantly snorting. “That’d be a disaster, we’d blow up your house! We should do it.”

Diego rolls his eyes. “Klaus and I can just stay in that motel. I’d say someone else can but Allison is the only one I’d be able to cope with.” Luther looks offended and Vanya looks hurt. Five blatantly doesn’t give a shit. Oh, to be Five.

Which leaves Allison with those three. Okay, then.

“I can book a hotel for tonight,” Luther says, surprising everyone. “I have something to deal with.”

Klaus laughs. “Something to deal with the way Diego dealt with that demon?”

“Something to deal with,” Luther repeats. “It’ll take all this evening. But I can help you guys until then.”

Diego says: “Nobody wants your help, Luther. I’m gonna go get cleaned up.”

“I think we should stay together,” Vanya offers, glancing at Five. “In case they come back.”

“Not you.” Diego shifts his feet, jaw tensing. “You were nothing but a liability back there. If they come for us again we can’t spend the whole time guarding you, we need to fight back. You’ll be safe alone, no demon is going to come for _you_.”

Vanya flinches back. The problem is that Diego has a point. He just doesn’t have to be so mean about it.

“Vanya, I’ll take you to my house,” Allison offers, in a hopeless attempt to rectify the situation. “You should be safe there.”

Vanya looks at the floor.

“Right,” she says. Her fists are clenched.

\--

“So,” Allison says on the way, ready to start Making An Effort. “What have you been up to?”

“You mean other than all this?”

“Yeah.”

Vanya shrugs. “Teaching, mostly. I just got a few new students so I’ve been busy.”

“Are you still in an orchestra?”

“Yeah. Third chair. Still.”

“That’s great, Vanya.” It sounds like she’s lying. A lot of things she says feel like she’s lying. “What about your writing?”

Vanya frowns. “Are you trying to ask if I’m writing a sequel?”

“No,” Allison corrects hurriedly. “I was just wondering if you were planning on writing something else. I mean, your book was well-written.”

“I don’t write,” Vanya says tensely, “anymore.”

“Right.” It shouldn’t be this hard to talk to her own sister. Allison’s the talker of their family, for god’s sake, she can hold an interview for hours, but with her own siblings things always end up stilted and weird. “So, this friend of Patrick’s. Would I know him?”

“Leonard Peabody?” It’s not a familiar name. Allison shakes her head. “He’s really nice. He helped me look for Five, and we just – have a lot in common.”

“You met him yesterday,” Allison points out. Vanya frowns.

“So?”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

Vanya looks away.

“I like him,” she says eventually. “He gets me, and he wants to learn the violin so I said I’d teach him over Skype.”

“Well, I hope it works out. You deserve someone nice.”

Is it normal for Vanya to look so suspicious?

“Thanks.”

Allison stares at the floor. She doesn’t want to change the subject to their siblings, because Vanya must be sick of people changing the subject to their siblings, but this is something she really needs to know.

“Vanya, what did Five say about the time he was gone?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Vanya defends weakly. “It’s bullshit, Allison, whatever the truth is he’s not saying.”

“Well, what did he tell you?”

“It’s not true,” Vanya says desperately, like by saying it hard enough that’ll make her right. “He was lying, or, or confused and he said a bunch of stuff -”

“What stuff?”

Vanya’s shoulders droop.

“He told me,” she starts slowly, “a lot of things. Where he thinks he’s been, and why.” She looks around, almost like she expects him to show up and tell her to stop talking. “Look, are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes.” No.

Vanya takes a deep breath.

“He told me he was in Purgatory.”


	3. Monster

Allison heads back to the others with Five’s whole story in her head, hauntingly retold by Vanya. She left Vanya talking with Patrick, who was all too unsurprised when she told him they had to cancel the honeymoon. If anything, he seemed relieved. Relieved that Allison’s grief finally seemed to be manifesting like that of a normal person’s.

But she’s not a normal person.

The motel Klaus and Diego are staying in is totally sketch, and she’s pretty sure the receptionist thought she was there to buy drugs. At least she wasn’t recognised. Small mercies.

Room 8, the receptionist said. Knocking on the door is uncomfortable in how familiar it is. Dad made them stay in motels if the mission was particularly dangerous, because of the flexibility it allowed. Of course, he always booked himself in at swanky hotels a few streets away. Lucky for some.

Five swings the door open.

“You’re late,” he comments, twirling the umbrella in his margarita. Okay, this has got to stop. “The others were getting worried.”

She quirks a brow. “But not you?”

“You’re not an idiot. At least, not as bad as they are.” He swings the door open wider, revealing Klaus sitting on one of the twin beds painting his nails and Diego sharpening his knife on the other. “Welcome to the palace.”

Walking inside does nothing to quell her nerves. The room smells like Doritos, either because of Klaus or because it’s a motel, and in the corner a patch of mould is doing a very poor job of hiding behind a framed picture of a palm tree.

“Where’s Luther?”

“Bathroom.”

As if on cue, the toilet flushes. A second later Luther emerges, visibly relieved when he sees her.

“Okay,” he starts, clapping his hands together. Klaus startles and spills the polish on the bed. Great start, guys. “Now that we’re all together, we can run through some theories.”

“We already did that,” Five points out. “You think it was either me or a demon.”

“Not you, specifically,” Luther is quick to say, seemingly not noticing that he’s only digging a deeper hole. “Anyone close to him. It had to have been someone he trusted enough to let them get close, and stabbing’s not exactly hard, anyone could do that.”

“Are you accusing one of us?” Diego asks. Klaus grins like it’s Christmas.

Luther shuffles.

“I didn’t do it,” he says. “But you guys have always been – angry at him. It’s weird that his monocle’s gone. Like a trophy, like someone who knew him took it.”

“You told me you thought it was a demon,” Allison points out, uncomfortable with the atmosphere in the room. Diego looks like he’s half a second from leaping up and fighting Luther himself. “I think that makes more sense.”

“One of us could’ve been possessed,” Luther says. “If demons really can hide what they are, we wouldn’t have seen it coming. Does anyone have a gap in their memory from a few days ago? An alibi?”

Five finishes his margarita with a resounding slurp.

“No gap,” he says. “But also no alibi.”

“Uhhh.” Klaus squints at the picture of the palm tree like it’s got all the answers. Maybe he thinks it does. “I was kind of high as shit” – big surprise there – “so it’s kind of all blurry? Maybe someone saw me but I dunno. But, honestly, do you think I could stab someone that high? I couldn’t even look at a screen without my eyes bugging out.”

Everyone stares.

“You might not have really been high,” Luther says, but the defeat in his tone is clear. He believes Klaus. “What about you, Diego? You’ve definitely got motive, and you’ve got means.”

“Yeah,” Klaus crows. “Everyone knows you’re the knife guy!”

Diego’s scowl sinks even further. He and Allison never got on that well. He used to tease her and she used to care, and she’s pretty sure his whole second-best issue meant he didn’t like her because she liked Luther better than him.

About a year ago, Diego got kicked out of the police academy. He called Allison a few days after, drunk as shit and probably crying, begging to know how she’d managed to make something of herself outside of hunting.

She told him that she’d lied a lot, and now she can never stop. He took a shaky breath.

Now Diego stands, poised to fight.

“I don’t have to tell you shit,” he spits. “You’re accusing us, but last time I checked _you _were the one still hunting with Dad. Who would it be easiest for, huh? Allison, living in a different city, followed by paparazzi? Or you, living with him, fighting with him, trusted by him?”

Luther’s gaze bores right through him.

“I would never. I _could _never.”

“Yes,” Allison says gently, as gently as she’s able. “You could.”

Luther hangs his head.

“You have to understand,” she goes on, taking a cautious step forward. “How we sound to you right now, that’s how you’re sounding to us. To accuse one of us is ridiculous. Dad had lots of enemies in the things that we hunted. That’s where we should be looking.” Because they could be coming for them next.

Luther twitches.

“I just want to know what happened.”

“We all do.”

She glares at Five, who’s clearly opened his mouth to say that he doesn’t. It snaps back shut.

“Walk us through what happened with Dad,” she says, moving to the closest bed and sitting tiredly. “You said somebody stabbed him?”

Luther sighs, long and exhausted.

“Yeah,” he admits. “I wasn’t there. I wish more than anything that I had been. I was on a case, this former astronaut that Dad thought might’ve been a vampire. I’d been investigating all day, so when I got back I just wanted to go to bed. But as soon as I got inside I could tell something was wrong. And then I found him.”

Five swirls the straw in his drink. “Was it fresh?”

“No. He’d been dead for at least a few hours.” And how fucked up is it, that they can all instantly tell a thing like that? “It was the worst day of my life.”

“Worse than Ben dying?” Diego cuts in sharply. Christ.

“Let’s not do that,” Allison says. Looks like it’s down to her to the peace negotiator. Don’t any of her brothers know how to grow up?

“Dad’s monocle was gone,” Luther says. “Someone took it as a trophy. Find the monocle, find the killer.”

“That monocle needed to go,” Diego says, right as Klaus sighs: “I’d have loved to get my hands on that. Makes any outfit look sophisticated.”

“I don’t see how Dad’s death even matters,” Five declares. Crickets. “You don’t have to look at me like I just murdered a puppy. The bastard is dead, whatever. You can all finally move on with your lives. I have more important things to deal with.”

“We have moved on,” Allison says, but she’s not sure if it’s true. “And more important things like what? You’re being awfully cagey.”

He won’t meet her eyes. “Am I?”

“Does this have something to do with Purgatory?” Five stops. “Vanya told me.”

“And you believed her?”

“Jury’s still out, but I guess it makes sense. And if it’s true then we’re in trouble.”

“What’s all this about Purgatory?” Diego cuts in. Five waves a hand.

“I’ll explain later.”

“You’ll explain now.”

Someone knocks on the door.

“We didn’t order room service,” Allison calls out. Klaus bounces on the bed.

“Do motels even do room service?”

This motel has a keyhole. It only ends up giving them an extra second when Five practically teleports over, looks through, and says: “Shit.”

Then the door smashes in.

It’s that fucking pink dog demon. And oh, great, she has a friend. A blue bear with horrendously big teeth.

“There you are,” Cha Cha says. Five spreads his arms.

“Here I am.”

“We’ve been looking for you.”

“I noticed. Your friend there already found me but he just wasn’t fast enough. What’s going to make this time any different?”

“This time,” Cha Cha says, “Hazel isn’t alone.”

When Hazel and Cha Cha fight, it’s as a team. They move as one. The Hargreeves should fight like that, did fight like that, but they’ve been apart so long it’s turned into disorganised chaos. When Allison pulls Hazel towards her Diego’s on the other side trying to do the same thing. Klaus is in the corner necking his drink. They’re such a shit team. If they didn’t have the advantage of numbers they’d be screwed.

Hazel very clearly doesn’t want to fight her. He wants Five. Allison gets a high kick to his face and he looks done with the world, like he just wants to go home and have a cup of tea. She can relate.

“Who even are you people?” Hazel asks. Allison takes a moment to stop and be incredulous.

“Are you kidding me? You’re the ones stalking us!”

“We’re stalking _him_.”

“Just fuck off,” Allison says. Why can’t they just let her have this, she just got her family back, can’t they ever as a group get a break? “Forget about Five.”

“Demons never forget. Unfortunately.”

This fight is starting to last a stupidly long time. It’s what happens when you face someone equally matched. Diego’s still going but he’s run out of knives, Five looks bored as hell and Cha Cha’s panting like she’s actually a dog.

“Let’s just call it quits,” Klaus calls over. Lazy twat. “I want to go to bed.”

“This isn’t over until they explain what they have to do with Dad,” Luther says. Cha Cha must’ve booted him in the face because he’s starting to get a real shiner.

Allison never thought she’d see a demon look confused.

“Your dad?” Cha Cha says. “Hazel, did we kill their dad?”

“Uh,” Hazel says.

“Reginald Hargreeves,” Diego says. “Moustache, monocle, heartless. Ring a bell?”

“We kill so many people,” Hazel says. “Sometimes it’s hard to keep track.”

“Man, we didn’t do shit,” Cha Cha says. “I’d remember a guy with a monocle because that shit is ridiculous.”

Klaus bursts out laughing.

“Lady, you’re a pink dog! Not that that isn’t cool. I would love to be a pink dog. But it is kind of, you know, stupid?”

Cha Cha bares her fangs, like she’s daring them to call her fangs stupid. Allison’s willing to go a step beyond and call this whole thing stupid. No one even knows what’s going on and the people that do aren’t telling.

“And it’s getting late,” Klaus goes on. “I’m tired. You must be tired.”

“I don’t think demons get tired,” Diego says. Hazel raises his hand.

“I’m tired.”

“Great,” Five says. “So go. Find me tomorrow.”

“It’s supposed to be today,” Cha Cha says. “That’s the whole point.”

“Today’s almost over so I figure it’s already a wash. It’ll be more dramatic if you do it tomorrow.”

“If we wait until tomorrow, you’ll run off. Do you think you’re the first person to try and convince us to leave?”

“Oh shit,” Luther says, almost to himself. “It is late.”

“I also want to convince you to leave,” Klaus says. No one but Allison’s noticed how peaky Luther’s starting to look. How hard did Cha Cha kick him? “Please go, I don’t think any of us can be bothered.”

“I need to go,” Luther says. Klaus waves a hand.

“I’m talking to them, not you.”

“Luther, are you okay?” Allison asks. Everyone turns to look. Luther’s hand is over his mouth.

“I’m fine.” That didn’t sound right. Sounded like he was talking with his mouth full. Which is how you know something is wrong, because Luther would never. “But I really need to go.”

“Chickening out?” Diego asks, frowns. “What is wrong with your hand?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you sure? Because it looks real veiny. And, uh, claw-y.” He trails off. “Oh, shit. We should run.”

For once in her life, Allison agrees with Diego. Because Luther’s eyes are going yellow and she’s seen people do this right before she killed them.

“Fuck,” Cha Cha says. “We’ve got a werewolf situation.”

“Abort mission.” Hazel’s already backing off towards the door. “We’ll try again tomorrow, I’m not fighting a werewolf.”

Five sounds way too amused as he says: “I think this werewolf wants to fight you.”

Unfortunately, he’s right. Luther-the-wolf is advancing at Hazel and Cha Cha in a very threatening way. Growls and everything.

“Oh my god,” Allison says, right as Luther bounds forwards. Cha Cha moves in retaliation, but Five’s there yanking her back. Allison wants to crow that they shouldn’t forget about the rest of them, but she doesn’t want Luther’s attention on her. There’s no telling how far he knows who they are.

“Fuck this,” Hazel says, stepping through the motel door right as Luther gets to it. “Easy, boy. Mission accomplished, we’re going home.”

“I can’t through the door with a wolf in the way,” Cha Cha says. They really do seem to have forgotten the rest of them are here. In all fairness, Five’s backed off to join Klaus in drinking a cocktail.

“So climb through the window.”

“There is no window. This is a really shit motel room.”

“Feel free to pay for a better one,” Diego interrupts, staring at Luther like he’s transcended from this realm. “Who even are you guys?”

“We’re demons.”

“Yeah, I can see that, but what do you want?”

“We’re _contracted _demons,” Hazel says. Five’s slurping gets louder. “We’ll leave you alone once we complete the contract. Can none of you do something about this wolf?”

“That wolf,” Allison says, “is our brother.”

Speaking of, Luther’s a pretty calm wolf. He must be self-aware, because he’s not going mental like some rabid wolves have in the past. He’s just guarding Hazel and Cha Cha, stopping them from making any sudden moves.

“Yeah, forget this,” Cha Cha says. “We’re getting Chinese tonight.”

When Cha Cha leaves, it’s by jumping right over Luther, kicking off his back. He growls and moves to chase them, but stops when Allison calls out. His eyes looks so sad when he sees them all standing in horror. Then he turns and runs.

“Did you know,” Allison breathes, already knowing the answer. Diego shakes his head.

\--

“It was supposed to be a simple mission,” Luther says, head bowed. Like when dogs get upset. Bad thought to have. “This town kept having animal attacks, and they were once a month at full moons, we knew it must have been a werewolf. And he wasn’t hard to find. Wasn’t trying to hide. Probably didn’t even know hunters existed.”

Allison hunted alone a few times after she left. It was always a nightmare. No one to help you research, no one to have your back. It was scary. Dangerous.

Dad shouldn’t have kept sending Luther on missions alone, but Dad and Luther probably didn’t see it like that. They would’ve seen it as the fault of the others for leaving.

Luther looks like shit. Exhausted, drooping, messy hair. Five ‘acquired’ some clothes from a local store, but misjudged Luther’s size, so the shirt and pants are hanging loose and baggy. Do werewolves have hangovers? Because that’s what this looks like.

“I wanted to wait until he changed,” Luther explains. “Just to be sure. But it – it went wrong. He attacked me. I almost died. I thought that I had. I had chunks torn out of me.” Allison feels sick. “He did a runner, in the end. I never caught him. It’s my greatest failure.”

“Ben was your greatest failure,” Diego says. Luther tenses up.

“Looks like it’s always werewolves that fuck us up, huh?” Klaus says, voice light but strained. “So, what, you turned next month?”

“…Yeah. Dad thought I’d been turned, I was hoping I hadn’t. Then it got to the next full moon and we knew for sure.”

It takes a second for that to sink in.

“Wait,” Allison says, frowning. “You told Dad?”

“Of course I told Dad.”

“Why would you do that? Dad was a _hunter_. He could’ve killed you!”

“He wouldn’t,” Luther defends, but he doesn’t look so sure. “Even if he did, he’d be well within his right. I – I’m a _monster_ now, Allison. Without precautions, I could go rabid. I could kill people. Innocent people.”

Yikes, there’s so much to unpack there.

“If Dad knew,” Diego says, “Why didn’t he kill you?”

“He needed me. I was the only one still there. And it wasn’t all that bad, really. It made some missions easier.”

“What do you mean?” Allison asks with unease. Luther looks at the floor.

“You know what I mean.”

“To kill,” Five says. It’s the first thing he’s said for the entire conversation. “It makes sense. Decent tactic. Not like it’s easy to fight a giant wolf.”

Luther bows his head.

“How many?” Diego asks, but Luther won’t answer.

Usually Allison always has something to say. Fake comfort, real comfort, the works. But it’s always been different with her family. The words dry up and everything she says feels like a lie.

She didn’t know what to say when he showed up back here, quiet and sweating. She’d stood outside for hours waiting, watching the full moon and failing to cope. Which is bad, because she’s supposed to be the one who copes the best. The Well Adjusted Sibling™. The girl you’d never think used to be a hunter. If someone told you then you wouldn’t believe it.

Five can’t go back to her house. It’s a practical decision. He’s got two demons after him and he’d be putting them in danger. In the shock of the whole werewolf thing everyone seems to have forgotten to bug Five about why they’re even coming for him. Allison wants badly to bring it up, but she’s so tired, and she thinks she’s figured it out, anyway. That demon said they were contracted. They’ve shown up ten years to the day since Five disappeared. Not hard to figure out that he made some kind of deal. Was it to stay young forever? Maybe, but something tells her that isn’t it.

“Allison!” Vanya’s running over as soon as she’s opened the door. “Why were you so late, I thought something had happened to you -”

Allison’s eyes catch on a guy in the corridor. A guy who is definitely not Patrick.

“Excuse me, why are you in my house?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Leonard Peabody.” Allison doesn’t shake his offered hand, leading him to rub his neck. “Vanya sounded worried when we talked on the phone, so I came over to make her feel better. Your husband said it was fine.”

“I’m sure.” She’s had a long day and she’s tired and this guy is giving her vibes. “I’m sorry, I feel so rude just kicking you out, but I really need to speak with my sister.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

_You already have_. She swallows the words down, refusing to be that person.

“I’ll go say goodbye to Patrick,” Leonard says. “He was worried about you. Vanya, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Vanya nods. Allison doesn’t like this. She doesn’t like it one bit.

She waits until his footsteps have disappeared to say: “Luther’s a werewolf.”

“What?”

“He got bit on a mission and Dad made him use it to kill people.”

“Oh my god. It sounds like Dad.” Vanya tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah. I mean, no, but yeah. We got attacked again but we’re all okay. Five’s staying with Luther. It seemed too risky for him to come back here if those things are after him.”

Vanya’s face hardens. “Because of me?”

“Not just you. Patrick, my security team…None of you are trained to deal with pink dog monsters or blue bears.”

“Or werewolves.”

“Or werewolves.”

“I can’t believe it,” Vanya says. “I mean, I can, but I don’t want to. Any other transformations I should know about?”

“Just him. I think.” She’s about to go on when Patrick shows up. “Hi, honey.”

“Hey. I’m glad you’re okay.” His smile is worried. “What took you so long?”

“It was the will. There were some…disagreements.”

“Right. Makes sense. Wait, if it was the will, why wasn’t your sister there?”

“Vanya wasn’t on the will,” Allison says smoothly. Vanya looks at the floor.

“Oh,” Patrick says. “I’m sorry. How are you all coping?”

“We’re fine,” Vanya says. “I hadn’t spoken to him for years.”

“Still. You must be upset.”

“Yeah,” Vanya says. She won’t meet Allison’s eyes. “I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed.”

Allison watches her go with a heavy heart. She should’ve tried to exorcise Hazel and Cha Cha, but there was no way to get both at once and Cha Cha bounced right back from the last one.

Luther called himself a monster before she left, and he wouldn’t let her convince him otherwise. She’s never felt so useless in her life.

Patrick wants to go to bed too. She tells him she’ll be right along. She needs some time to herself.

She starts out on bottled water, but quickly moves to wine. She doesn’t even like red wine, but here she is crinkling her nose and downing it anyway. All this is reminding her why she quit hunting. It’s stressful and scary and you feel like you could die at any time.

When she finally leaves the kitchen she manages to trod right on something. When she hisses and uses the radiator for support her while she rubs her foot, the blasted thing burns her hand. Looks like it’s destined to be one of those days. What did she step on, anyway? Confetti thrower? Lipstick?

Allison switches from a lamp to the big light to get a better look and feels the world fall away when she does.

Dad’s monocle.

It can’t be. She’s just drunk, right? Except no, not really, she handles her alcohol well and she’s only just tipsy. The monocle sits innocuous, like it was presented there specifically to taunt her. Maybe it was. Maybe the killer left it just so she’d see and know. Or maybe it was abandoned, forgotten.

Either way, it’s all the evidence she needs to know that Leonard Peabody is guilty.


End file.
